


Stay Safe

by FeathersMcStrange



Series: Doppelgänger (Warehouse 13/The Following) [3]
Category: The Following, Warehouse 13
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Twins, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Doppelgänger Verse, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, No Romance, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeathersMcStrange/pseuds/FeathersMcStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>OR: Five times Mike Weston told his twin brother to stay safe at the end of a call, and two times he didn't.</p>
<p>A tradition beginning with grad school becomes the primary way for the Weston-Jinks twins to stay in touch, after the Agreement. The conversations begin and end the same way every time, with Mike making a loud exclamatory statement, Steve dryly replying 'hi Mike', and at the end of every one, the same phrase. </p>
<p>'Stay safe.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay Safe

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is the first part of like. Real DG!Verse, as opposed to the two previous fics which were written on a whim before I knew what sort of monster this particular idea was gonna turn into. And then V and I mooshed brains and DG!Verse was born.
> 
> Lowdown: Doppelgänger Verse, aka the verse in which Mike Weston and Steve Jinks are born Steven and Michael Weston-Jinks and the world changes accordingly. Steve is still with the Warehouse, Mike is with the FBI on the Carroll case, and it should be readable for people who only know one or the other of the fandoms involved.
> 
> (The bit about Mike having run into Ryan when he was originally investigating the Carroll case is a personal headcanon of mine that me and V were like 'omg what if' and then somehow it became 'canon'. DG!Verse canon that is. It makes sense with how much Mike idolizes Ryan in the beginning.)
> 
> (Also I may have fudged around with some timelines. o h w e l l.)

> _ "Mitchell, Weston's not picking up. I've tried him 3 times." _
> 
> _ "That's not like him. He always picks up." _
> 
> \- The Following, S1 E8 Welcome Home
> 
> _ "Hey, where's Steve?"  _
> 
> _ "Yeah, I don't know." _
> 
> _ "Uh I'll call him. He always answers his cell." _
> 
> \- Warehouse 13, S3 E3 Love Sick

It starts with grad school. When you have lived with someone all your life and suddenly find several hours of distance between you, it feels like the world's been thrown a few degrees off balance. Nothing has been flipped all the way upside down, but finding your footing is still hard. This goes double if this person happens to be your twin.

Steve gets used to it eventually, used to Mike not being there in quite the same way he was when they were kids, or when they went to college together. It's a hard adjustment to make, and some days he still turns to say something to Mike before he remembers that Mike's not actually there. What helps though, is the phone calls.

Those start by accident, with Steve's phone ringing in the evening of his first day of classes, Mike's voice running a hundred miles an hour before he's hardly answered. That call turns into another one, turned into four that week, until it doesn't feel like the day was really over until he'd talked on the phone with Mike.

When they start at the ATF and the FBI respectively, it's not easy to make time to talk to each other every night. It isn't odd for them to go days playing phone tag, leaving voicemails at odd hours and returning them whenever possible. It's frustrating and often results in going upwards of a week without actually speaking to each other, but it is the best way they can stay in contact, especially with the Agreement.

The Agreement is a result of one too many horror stories from Mike's academy instructors. Stories of loved ones kidnapped, hurt or even killed to get at an agent. Stories of parents and children used as bargaining chips. Nieces and nephews. Siblings.

Brothers.

Mike ends up calling in a panic at one am Virginia time. He's already launched into a flurry of anxious words when Steve answers, babbling about kidnapping and murder and revenge, and is greeted with a dry 'hi Mike' when he stops to take a breath.

Eventually Mike gets the whole explanation out, about how the FBI and the ATF aren't exactly risk-free jobs to begin with, and when you throw in a possible retaliation against one from something involving the other's career, well. There is only one solution Mike can see that keeps them both as safe as possible.

From that moment onward, neither Mike nor Steve mentions the existence of a twin to anyone. The only person in Mike's life who knows that Steve exists is Steve, and vice versa.

It's complicated – probably unnecessarily so – but the thought of someone using Mike against him is enough for Steve to agree to Mike's proposal. The decision about who keeps 'Weston' and who goes by 'Jinks' is really a matter of the fact that 'Mike Jinks' sounds even worse than 'Steve Jinks' does, and Steve graciously tells Mike that he's gonna have to deal with his middle and last names rhyming, but at least he won't get made fun of at work.

The end of that call is the first time Mike compulsively tells him 'stay safe, Steve.' There is a moment of silence before Steve says quietly back, 'stay safe', and the conversation ends there. When they speak next, Steve leaves a beat of empty air after Mike says goodbye before he responds. He doesn't say goodbye back.

He tells Mike to stay safe.

After that it becomes a habit, each twin issuing a somber urge to the other, praying the next phone call won't be from a hospital or – god forbid – a morgue.

This tradition continues through years, with a few close calls here and there but nothing too harrowing, compared to their every day danger levels. They see each other when they can, and still do their utmost to speak every night.

When the Carroll case breaks in the news, plastered across every information outlet worth its salt, Steve sees the call coming miles before his phone rings.

This case has been a major topic of conversation for Mike since its genesis, about ten years previously. Mike and Steve are sixteen years old, Mike auditing an English class at a college nearby when the tv starts running the story of a serial killer on campus.

Steve freaks out and tells Mike he has to drop the class. Mike rolls his eyes at his brother and says he'll be fine, it's a pretty big school, he's only there three times a week for two hours, and besides, the victims so far have all been girls. He gestures to himself in a 'duh' sort of way before grabbing his bag and dashing out the door.

It's only about a week later that Mike quite literally runs into Ryan Hardy. He's trying to make the next bus home when he smacks right into a guy in a slightly crooked tie. Mike of course recognizes him instantly, babbling off at usual Mike speed about how he's been following the case on the news, and he knows who Hardy is from the press conference the FBI held when they first got there.

With a type of dry sarcasm that Mike will remember years later, when they meet formally for the first time, Hardy asks him if he got lost on the way to little league. (It's true that Mike's constantly looked significantly younger than he is, even if Steve's always looked his age, and how that is possible given they are identical is beyond Steve.)

Sixteen year old Mike is already shouting upstairs to Steve when he walks in the front door, about the FBI dude he met, y'know, the one on the news?

At which point Steve resigns himself to the fact that he's probably going to be hearing about this for approximately the next decade or so, and listens in fond amusement as Mike pronounces that this is The Coolest Thing that has ever happened to him.

They are seventeen when Joe Carroll is arrested, eighteen when he is convicted and sentenced. The death penalty. They keep quiet about that part at the dinner table with their mother, what nights their mother actually ends up home for dinner.

Steve's prediction becomes shockingly accurate, as here he is roughly ten years later, lying on his back on his bed, the tv playing dimly in the background, answering the phone to Mike shouting in his ear about the Carroll case and, of course, Ryan Hardy.

“I get to _work_ with him!”

“Hi Mike.” Steve is sure that Mike can hear the grin in his voice.

“The Carroll case, I get to work with him! Ryan Hardy!”

“I'm okay thank you for asking, Mike.”

“I am _working_ with _Ryan Hardy_.”

“Work's great, team's fine, nothing much's been happening.”

“Like _that_ Ryan Hardy.”

“Yes Mike, I know who you're talking about. This guy's only been your hero since you were like sixteen.”

Steve stares at the ceiling above his bed, listening to Mike as he goes on and on about this thing and that thing, circling periodically back to the Carroll case and the ever-present fact that this is The Coolest Thing that has ever happened to him. He asks questions at the appropriate places, cringing at Mike's recounting of a gruesome crime scene they'd encountered. After a while, Mike seems to have talked himself out of this particular topic, turning the line of conversation towards Steve and the team at the Warehouse.

“So anyway, how's life in canyon country?”

“They're called the badlands actually,” Steve corrects him, sitting up and switching the phone to the other hand, so he could flex the stiff one. He stands up and heads for the door to his room, fairly sure he is alone in the boarding house and therefore safe to continue this conversation in the kitchen while he makes tea. “And everything's pretty normal, I guess. Nothing much has been happening, honestly. When I signed up for this job I thought it was gonna be a lot more exciting than this but I was on stakeout like three times last week.”

On the other end of the line he can hear Mike's frustrated huff of breath. “Yeah, and I guess you still can't tell me why that is, right? Super top secret special need to know information, your boring stakeouts for your nameless faceless government organization.”

“Hey, cut it out, you know I'd tell you if I could.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. How's Claudia?”

Hearing the name of the girl he befriended faster than he's ever befriended anyone before the Warehouse, Steve grins and sets the kettle on the stove, turning it on. “She's great, about as bored of stakeouts as I am. Pete and Myka are good too, though I think Pete might actually be in the ER right now, getting his arm splinted or something.”

“That's 'good'?”

Steve is about to answer when Claudia careens into the room, and he laughs out loud at the fact that she is already saying something as she rifles through cupboards looking for a bag of chips. Sometimes she reminds him so much of Mike that it's scary. Claudia pauses mid-sentence when she notices the cell phone held up to Steve's ear and cringes.

“Oops. Sorry. Carry on with whatever super boring business you've got goin on, Jinksy.”

“Sorry Dr. Weston, someone walked in,” Steve says.

“Claudia?” asks Mike. “Ooh, tell her I say hi.”

“Yeah, sure, I can do that.” He tries to keep the sarcasm out of his voice for the benefit of Claudia, now sitting on the counter with her bag of chips open next to her, making faces at him. She is presumably trying to make him laugh and screw up a phone call with his 'doctor'. Unbeknownst to Claudia, the person on the phone with him (emphatically not his doctor, or a doctor of any kind) is doing exactly the same thing.

Talking on the phone to someone nobody knows exists is a lot easier when you don't live with anybody else, and there have been several near reveals since moving into the boarding house with people walking in on Steve in the middle of a conversation. This has led to instances in which Steve has to abruptly invent a doctor's consultation or a nosy aunt to explain away who he's talking to, Mike's laughter on the other end reflecting how entertaining he finds this situation and how truly awful the thinks Steve is at lying. Mike tries to trip him up every time without fail, it's part of the normalcy in their bizarre situation.

With his brother's voice chattering in his ear, Steve shoots Claudia an apologetic look and makes his exit of the room, walking outside and breathing in the rapidly cooling evening air.

“I really hope she doesn't ask you why you were talking to your doctor at. Whatever time it is where you are.” After a beat, “You know I can't actually see you right, so the eye rolling is purely for your own benefit.”

“Apparently not,” Steve replies and he knows exactly what the grin on Mike's face looks like.

Mike launches back into some forgotten detail of his opening monologue as Steve watches the stars start to appear in the darkening sky. It's late and he can tell they're both getting tired, but he lets Mike keep talking. For all that Ryan Hardy is his hero, this case has seriously gotten to Mike, and Steve can tell. So he lets his brother talk it all out, knowing that getting it into the open is what has always helped him the most. Mike talks and Steve listens until Mike's words start slurring together.

“Go to bed, kiddo, or you're gonna fall asleep on the phone.”

“Seven minutes, Steven, you are literally seven minutes older than me.”

“Go. To. Bed.”

“Alright, fine, _mom_. Goodnight. Stay safe.”

“Stay safe, Mike.”

Steve listens for the soft click that says Mike has hung up the phone before he drops his from his ear, takes another moment to muster the energy to move and walking back inside. Claudia greets him with a grin and an offer of the chip bag. He passes it up with a wave, heading upstairs into his room and flopping down onto his bed.

He's asleep in a matter of moments.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to the best partner in AU making and tv show watching I could ever ask for. I hope you have a lovely day, darling friend, you deserve it and more. I'm so glad I have you in my life, and in the DG!Verse hivemind. <3 Happy birthday V!
> 
> drop me a line with your thoughts!


End file.
